Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1887-08-27
THE GEORGE FALLACY ABOUT WEALTH
AND POVERTY.


Mr. Henry George in his Cincinnati
speech, the other day, declared anew his
old doctrine, that there is to be erected
somewhere and somehow, cross on which
people who venture to hold land should be
nailed by taxation sufficiently heavy to
pay all governmental charges This is very
pretty in theory for the owners of personal
property But it will occur to most peo-
pie that before such scheme can begin to
look forward TO success, a sufficient num-
Der of men must believe and intend with
Mr.. George, to transform the intention and
belief into law, and that, too into constitu-
tional law
The fact is, that Mr. George has lost
ground, and has less footing in popular
confidence to-day than he had some half
dozen years ago. When his Progress and
Poverty" appeared it brought him very
prominently to the front, and attracted to
him public attention i'll an abnormal de-
gree. His ideas were seemingly novel and
his nervously forcible method of reasoning,
his appeals to the misfortunes of some. and
the results of the vices of others, served to
pose him as the forerunner of a new era.
in which the present social conditions
were to be upset, and reorganization
made according to the plans CT the George
gospel, which was to right all wrongs and
abolish all ills. But that period of enthu-
siastic belief passed, and the public thought
settled down to the conclusion that Mr..
George was neither original in his ideas
nor novel as to his plans, and that both are
visionary and impracticable. Something
of Il revival of popularity took place when
he became candidate for Mayor of New
York, but his following does not ap-
pear to have deeply studied his sys-
TEN of social and political economics.
1t was moved rather by the enthusiasm of
the hone :" elect man in opposition to
parties, and as a representative
..,por classes. In fact, Mr.. George does
not represent them, except so far as they
adapt themselves to his ideas.
At the Ohio meeting referred to, Mr..
George and his followers adopted a plat
form, the preamble of which reads: 1--WE
hold that all inequality of conditions
arising under and made possible by the
present economic system spring from the
monopolization by the few of the natural
opportunities which are the common
rights of ALL This sweeping declaration
attributing all inequality to the monopo-
lzation of opportunity is nothing less
than absurd. There is taken no account
whatever of personal vices, and of human
weaknesses, but in one swinging, sounding
sentence there is cleared away all the
factors OF civilization and of degeneracy,
and all failure is laid at the door of real
property possession. For in the first reso-
luton that follows is the demand for
abolition of all taxation upon improve
ments and the products of industry and
its imposition upon land values Then
comes the demand for Government control |
OF railways, telegraphs and other means |
of distribution and communication. The |
wind mp" is a demand for a medium of |
exchange to be issued direct from the |
general Government" What this is to be |
Is not revealed, and the adherent of the |
George faction is left to construe the de-
claration to fit his own financial ideas
The idea of abolishing personal owner
ship in land is not, as we have said, new.
But old or new, it resolves itself into this
that the rental by the individual of the
State is the severest form of taxation, since |
he will occupy who bids highest Now |
asks the New York Star, Suppose the
plan to be tried and the rich outbid the |
poor, must not there be a supplement to
the scheme limiting the amount one may
occupy" If the occupancy rental meets
all governmental expense how is this to
free the poor from poverty? Does it fol-
low that because with n state of ownership
in land some remain poor and Others grow
rich, that to abolish it relieves the
poor from want? Yet upon this assump-
tion the whole argument of Mr.. George
proceeds.
Not long ago it was shown in these col
unns that the George idea, that as the
production of wealth grows greater. the
share that goes to the laboring class
grows less, is absolutely untrue when tried
in the fire of social statistics. These sta
tistics show that the condition of the labor
ing class has been steadily bettered. its
wages uniformity increased, and that its
opportunity has been constantly enlarging.
The theory OF Mr.. George is underlaid
with the fallacy that as population in
creases wealth increases disproportionately
and all the increase is absorbed BY the
landlord, while the laborer remains where
he was as to wages and interest. As
matter of fact this is not true, because it is
susceptible of proof that the labor of pro-
duction absorbs most OF the increase. II
is because there is more general distribu-
tion of the results of industry and produc-
ton, that the universally wealthy, in pro-
portion to all Others, are SO few. Or, as
has been shown dozen times by writers
on statistical proofs, and most forcibly BY
Mallock and de Laveleye, the history of
progress in production and accumulation
is not the history of the rise of rent, but
Of its decline. The gap between extreme